Re: Another 2 Clement gem

From: Bart Ehrman (behrman@email.unc.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 19 1999 - 10:23:00 EST


   Sorry. The ANQRWPON in question is accusative singular.

-- Bart Ehrman

On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> At 8:38 AM -0500 2/19/99, Bart Ehrman wrote:
> > In 2 Clement 10, after "for if we are eager to do good, peace will
> >pursue us," comes a peculiar line (v. 3): dia tauthn gar thn aitian ouk
> >estin heurein anthrwpon, hoitines paragousi phobous anthrwpinous,
> >prohirhmenoi mallon thn enthade apolausin h thn mellousan epaggelian.
> > Can anyone make sense of this without emending the text?
> >
> > Can anyone who thinks the text needs to be emended suggest something
> >plausible?
>
> I have to transcribe this into our more standard transliteration to make it
> clear for myself; what I'm wondering (I don't have a Greek text of the
> original handy) is whether the ANQRWP- form following hEUREIN is acc. sg.
> or genitive plural;
>
> DIA TAUTHN GAR THN AITIAN OUK ESTIN hEUREIN ANQRWP/ON (/WN?), hOITINES
> PARAGOUSI FOBOUS ANQRWPINOUS, PROHiRHMENOI MALLON THN ENQADE APOLAUSIN H
> THN MELLOUSAN EPAGGELIAN.
>
> We want, of course, an antecedent for hOITINES, which could not ordinarily
> be the singular ANQRWPON, in which case the hOITINES clause dangles. The
> one thought that occurs to me is that, IF the word in question is the
> genitive plural ANQRWPWN, it could be partitive; in earlier Greek, and
> perhaps in second-century Atticist Greek also, it's common enough to find
> partititives functioning as subjects and objects of sentences. So, IF the
> word is ANQRWPWN, understood as a partitive and as subject of hEUREIN, then
> we'd have: "if we are eager to do good, peace will pursue us, since it is
> for this reason that it is impossible for any men to find it, such as bring
> along human anxieties, since they have chosen enjoyment here rather than
> the promise to come." I am understanding OUK ESTIN here again in the sense
> OUK EXESTIN, "it isn't possible ..."
>
> A bit more awkward, I think, but conceivable, is to understand ANQRWPON as
> an acc. sg. subject of hEUREIN, and then, since it can be understood as a
> generic human being, make the following clause a generic plural, as we do
> in careless colloquial English, e.g.: "No one can do this, if they try to
> do something else at the same time."
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics/Washington University
> One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
> Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
> cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
> WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
>

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